Feel terrified and disempowered by NHS

[jezza1234]

Hi all,
Really need to vent. Just had a 25 week appointment with yet another midwife who is about 10 minutes out of training, has no idea how to do the simplest thing and has no idea who I am or anything about me. I am terrified of giving birth in that hospital (Whittington in London) - there is no continuity of care, no personalisation, not even any continuity of information given out! I feel like i’m on a conveyor belt that no-one has any control over. Would rather blow £15K on private birth than deal with the stress and anxiety of the NHS.

Go for a private birth. I had the same experience as you last time and I felt so unsafe that I had an elective section just to regain some control. I am now pregnant with number 2 and seeing a private consultant and midwife. I feel so much more confident because I have been cared for so well, and am trying for a VBAC this time. You won’t regret going private.

@jezza1234 I'm so sorry!

Can you call your maternity helpline to ask some follow up questions? Not that it makes it any better as you should have been able to ask her but to help any immediate worries?

I found it was all a bit rushed until my 28 week appointment when they started taking more interest which is hard for us as FTMs but I think they just have so many women they have to find a way to split who needs them now.

A friend of mine had her baby at Whittington Sep 2019 and no complaints so hopefully you have just had random bad experiences with midwives. If it's that stressful though perhaps transfer.

They shouldn't being stressing you out like this!

Then you should do that tbh. I've seen my actual named midwife 2 twice my whole pregnancy and she won't be there when I give birth either. If you're In labour during a shift change you'll get a new midwife/team half way through that as well it's just how it is. That's what happened during my last labour. If you can afford to go private and put your worries and anxieties at ease you should do it. Although from what I've read it's more than 15k!

What hospital are you at? Have you checked thier private facilities costs?

Private MW? Private hispital? Or how about a doula? Or can you just transfer hospitals.

What did she not know how to do? This is potentially dangerous.

Do it!
Look up independent midwives. They're not all 15k, there's lots of reasonably priced options.
Put your baby and your welfare first.

Thanks everyone appreciate the comments. To be fair I have never felt unsafe and there are good quality midwives there, it’s just so unpredictable and luck of the draw who you get at any one time. I have never seen my named midwife, my booking in appt was terrible with the wrong information noted down (eg. I was put on the gestational diabetes pathway for no reason because I was born in South Africa - not a risk factor at all). Today the midwife taking my blood pressure turned my arm purple and numb by overpumping the manual meter. For me it is really about loss of control, that if I have the bad luck of getting the inexperienced/bad midwives while in labour I am at much greater risk of a mismanaged/traumatic birth. Especially with Covid: I looked into private midwives but with restrictions on birth partners they wouldn’t be able to come into the hospital and advocate for me while I’m in labour. Also hate the idea of being stuck in a labour ward with so many other people. I am seriously looking into private hospitals - the Whittington doesn’t have a private wing but know that others do.

I know what you mean: my experience of the nhs maternity service has been hugely inefficient, massively disorganised, wildly incompetent, dingy and vaguely unpleasant in routine matters but when the chips are down, they will do whatever is needed to save your life in a way that works well.

Remember that the US, which has beautiful private rooms and shiny hospitals has significantly worse maternity outcomes for a LOT more money.

So - totally fair enough if you don’t fancy seeing a different person each time and staying on a ward with other mums and babies and waiting an hour for each appointment, I get that. But don’t be too terrified... it’ll be okay. They save mums and babies every day. In my first pregnancy I had preeclampsia and they 100% saved me and my baby.

You can help keep yourself safe by being an expert on your own care. In this, my second pregnancy, I’m telling everyone about my first pregnancy and making sure I get the care plan needed.

I am being looked after in the Sir Stanley Clayton Wing at Queen Charlotte’s, and highly recommend the care I have received so far

Switch hospitals. Royal Free or UCH.

@recreationalcalpol I'm at QC too. Transferred after doing most of the antenatal care privately, but am currently under the NHS. As due date approaches (36 w), we're wondering about the private packages and were considering seeing if we could get a private room (which I think they offer when available) instead of all the care. Do you mind me asking which package you went for? I was looking on their site today but can't quite work out what the final bill is likely to be for a private birth without complications - I can't tell if it's £4k-£5k all in, or whether you then have the consultant fee (of more than the same again) on top...

No worries if you don't feel comfortable sharing. I could give them a call, I suppose! It's good to hear you've been impressed as I wasn't sure how much better it would be than NHS :D xx

I never got the concept of a named midwife. I saw loads of different ones, whoever was available when each appointment was made. They all had access to my notes. Not sure what the point of having a specific one is when you could go in to labour at any point or have complications at any point and not have any control over who is on duty.

Sounds like you've had a couple of sub par experiences at appointments but nothing that major.

[quote Mimiwish]@recreationalcalpol I'm at QC too. Transferred after doing most of the antenatal care privately, but am currently under the NHS. As due date approaches (36 w), we're wondering about the private packages and were considering seeing if we could get a private room (which I think they offer when available) instead of all the care. Do you mind me asking which package you went for? I was looking on their site today but can't quite work out what the final bill is likely to be for a private birth without complications - I can't tell if it's £4k-£5k all in, or whether you then have the consultant fee (of more than the same again) on top...

No worries if you don't feel comfortable sharing. I could give them a call, I suppose! It's good to hear you've been impressed as I wasn't sure how much better it would be than NHS :D xx[/quote]
It’s £4-£5k for the birth and midwife appointments, and then consultant fees on top (mine are £9500).

Reading this makes me very glad I had my baby in NZ. When my GP confirmed my pregnancy she gave me a list of local midwives, from which I could select. I spoke to a few on the phone and chose one I got on with and who was supportive of a home birth. Although she was based at a hospital all routine appointments were at my home over a cup of tea. A few weeks before my due date I met her partner in case my midwife wasn't available when I went into labour, but other than that, she provided all care apart from blood tests and scans. In the end I had a long labour and my midwife had to go home to bed before my baby was born... so she called in for a quick cup of tea and to meet her the following day (her day off). She continued to provide all postnatal care, visiting daily for about a week, then once our twice a week until baby was 6 weeks old. At these visits she'd stay for the best part of an hour, helping with breastfeeding, and taking the time to answer questions and talk to us about how things were going. This was all completely free, but I can't imagine how different the experience would be if appointments had been in a dingy clinic and I had seen a different midwife each time. I would definitely pay for a more personal experience if I could afford it.

It is so hard. My hospital was all chaotic until I needed an EMCS, and then it was incredible. Thing is, I’m not sure I would have needed a c section if it hadn’t been so chaotic up until that point.

@recreationalcalpol thanks so much for the info! Just as I feared :D Appreciate the intel xx

Hiring independent midwives for my second and third births is by far the best thing I have ever done. It was about 3500 ( youngest is now 16 so that might have changed). I also paid in instalments. I only saw two midwives, went into hospital twice for scans, had all appointments at home and didn’t have all the intrusive monitoring, internal exams etc that is presented as necessary in the NHS system. The relief of not having to argue with opinionated midwives (often misinformed and with narrow views) was amazing. Go for it if you can afford it.

@DappledThings - the point of a named midwife is that all the research supports the fact that having a proper relationship with your midwife can have a huge impact on a woman’s pre natal, post natal and birth experience. The NHS pays lip service to this but just doesn’t have the resources or structure to support that in most areas.

your statement on dealing with "the stress and anxiety of the NHS" is a vast generalisation and really unfair. Im sorry for your situation but please dont slag the entire NHS, as a whole off. I've had 2 babies in a NHS London hospital and can truly not imagine how my births- both very different- could have been any more positive going private- than the experience I had. Ask you dont see this midwife again and if you have a really bad feeling- change hospitals.

[quote Musmerian]@DappledThings - the point of a named midwife is that all the research supports the fact that having a proper relationship with your midwife can have a huge impact on a woman’s pre natal, post natal and birth experience. The NHS pays lip service to this but just doesn’t have the resources or structure to support that in most areas.[/quote]
I get that to an extent, but surely in most straightforward cases it's a bit unnecessary. For me it was much better being able to make each appointment at a time that worked for me because I was just making it with a team. Seems much more stressful to me to be dependent on one person, having to wait for them to be available and only having one person to be able to call.

Plus I liked that there were specialists. So the antenatal midwives weren't the same as the delivery ones or the ones in the MAU. I'd rather a series of specialists than one generalist.

Do people really want a relationship with a medical professional? I wanted professional and efficient care, not a friend. I understand that in cases where there are any issues, physical or mental that a different level of consistency would be helpful but to try and make it standard seems like an inefficient use of resources to me.

If you have the budget look into private ante natal and post natal care with nhs scans and birth. You can have one consistent person that comes to you to do the routine tests and you can build a relationship with and it sounds like that’s what you want. The birth part is more expensive but not necessarily better but the care around birth is worth it

I do fully appreciate the value of the NHS when it comes to life or death situations. As you say @Brown76 it’s the bits around this that are worrying me, @2020quelhorreur case in point - you got good emergency care but treatment leading up to the care was possibly substandard (without knowing too much about your specific circumstances). I think private pre-/post-natal care is the best way to try and offset this, and reading up/educating ourselves to ensure that women and their partners can advocate for the best care possible.

I don't think at 25 weeks or even now at 33, I'm too worried about continuity of staff. I care more that the midwifes are dedicating their time to labours and the end few weeks. Right now, it's just paperwork and building up your notes. If I had an issue that's not getting sorted then you can escalate it, but having a student/assistant midwife at this stage I don't think is a big deal. X

Community midwives aren’t the same as the hospital midwives though? At least not where I had my babies. And even if they were you wouldn’t necessarily go into labour when they were on a shift. Like a pp I saw lots of different people during my babies’ birth - and it didn’t matter, the midwife helping me give birth was a professional, I didn’t need a relationship with her! The same post natal mw visited us at home a couple of times - that was the only time I appreciated the continuity.

@Sittinbythetree

Community midwives aren’t the same as the hospital midwives though? At least not where I had my babies. And even if they were you wouldn’t necessarily go into labour when they were on a shift. Like a pp I saw lots of different people during my babies’ birth - and it didn’t matter, the midwife helping me give birth was a professional, I didn’t need a relationship with her! The same post natal mw visited us at home a couple of times - that was the only time I appreciated the continuity.

Same for me. I don't understand the idea of a named midwife. My community midwife i.e. the woman I saw for the majority of my antenatal appointments was never ever going to be the midwife in labour - thats not her job. When I arrived at the hospital I was allocated whoever was on shift and she had no connection with the community team other than reading their notes.

Maybe it's different if you have antenatal appointments in hospital rather than at the GP surgery etc?